Cast of Characters

I am a writer who just happens to love family trees. As the self proclaimed Family Historian and Writer in Residence at my house, I blog to others about family history writing. When I first began this journey, everyone was bored silly with my "family tree stuff." Once I started writing the stories down, everyone willingly joined in. Now the whole family pretty much participates! Imagine that ! Follow along, and you can gain a little family appreciation for all your hard nosed genealogical research while learning a little something about the craft of writing too.

Category: Tips

This one has been eating away at me, figuratively of course. In reality I am no smaller, seeming any slimmer, more willowy looking nor am I blissfully dropping sizes rapidly. In fact, whilst wringing my hands in worry, I have knocked back more than one box of each variety of Girl Scout Cookies–I HAD to buy them–Dollbaby was selling them.

Although there isno chance this quandary of “what to wear” will send me over the edge (let’s not digress), I just can’t believe that no one else frets about this! I have Google-searched my brains out and the things that pop immediately are things I consider no-brainers.

Q. What to wear to a Prom? A. Formal

Q. What to wear to a friends’ wedding? A. Don’t wear white or black and never look better than the bride

Q. What to wear to a funeral? A. Black, black always works except for weddings

Q. What to wear to a murder? A. Gloves and a Mustache–DUH!

Now of course, there are a few bloggers out there who have graciously tried to offer up helpful advice on the matter. Probably the biggest and most commonly proclaimed one is the selection and rather forcibly encouraged wearing of suitable footwear. Lots of walking and standing at these things they bark…except that doesn’t hold true at this one. Of course.

Besides, I am not walking in with my resume chock full of Catholic-related “works published” in sensible shoes. They’ll think I’m a Nun–until I open my mouth of course while having the misfortune of stubbing my toe as I fall into the classroom.

Yes~ I can make a hell of an entrance!

This conference is a little different. It’s a one-day intensive for the Midwest Writer’s Workshop with only a handful of very specific, day-long offerings. These are held separately from the Mother-ship conference in late July so that anyone wanting to do the “intensives” can still participate in breakout sessions during the biggy later in the summer. Genius.

So why does it matter what I wear?Because I’ve signed up for the heart breaker…the Manuscript Review.

eek.

The workshop is indeed intense, and very limited (only 20 writers allowed in that one room to participate). We start at 9, end at 3 and eat our sack lunches at our desks. Shoes are not an issue. I’ve heard nothing of bathroom breaks.

All submissions (a full-page synopsis “Once Upon a Time” all the way through to “The End”) along with the polished and perfected double-spaced, Times New Roman 12pt first nine pages were due to the presenters weeks ago. They’ve had plenty of time to nit-pick, shred, gut and throw back their heads in a deep voiced jackal-laugh over each tiny misstep.

Nine measly pages. I can barely say hello to my dentist in 9 pages!

Here’s the kicker…I’m taking my baby…my NaNoWriMo project. You know, the one that consumed my life and brain for day upon day during last November! And the manuscript reviews are blind. Blind, in that, no one knows whose work is being shown and mauled and critiqued on the Smart-board. So no one has a spotlight shining over their head while they are beaten to a pulp alongside their masterpiece. Humane.

Except, my main character and me–well– we look an awful lot alike in the real world. It’s not a memoir, but parts of it are perhaps too true. And even though most of it is the stuff of complete and utter fiction, people who know me and have read excerpts swear that some of the most outlandish parts are the true parts!

So, should I be myself and sit comfortably with all my normal attire (and risk outing myself as the inspiration for the wildly unstable character up there on the class board)–or should I try to pick something neither my Protagonist nor I would ever choose? I have a feeling the latter would make me conspicuously squirmy and itchy!

I have a feeling it’s coming down to eeny-meeny-miny-mo in the morning…and my Mary Poppins boots 🙂 . So I’ll keep ya posted–if I survive that is

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This is not my favorite month. Maybe its a wee bit’o jealousy because the only Irish in my family’s DNA runs through my husband’s side of the equation. St Patrick’s Day has always been a fun day of green beer and sheepish pretense.

I’m not Irish, but kiss me or pinch me anyway! I do have green eyes though…the better to be “pea green with envy” with my dear…

Perhaps my disdainful attitude toward March is more about the weather here in the heartland. Good Lord what a ride! I, like many Hoosiers, dream of retirement in the desert, any desert. A place where the humidity level rarely flinches. Here, my sinus cavity is under a constant state of attack with it’s little faucet running full on, then suddenly dried up to a painful pinching sensation, only to find a tortured relief in the post-nasal agony of the drip..drip..drip. Yep, Indiana weather~ if you don’t like it ~ stick around for an hour, it’ll change.

Regardless of the snow, no snow, shorts and t-shirt weather and/or tornado laden skies outside, we Family Historians must push on. For that end, I offer you a list of To-Dos for March~

1. Do something really nice for yourself this month~ begin a little achievement journal. Nothing big and fancy (unless you just crave that kind of candy…I don’t judge). This can be as simple as making a to-do list on your calendar at the beginning of the week, and then checking off the “done-did-its” as you go. It’s a gift to give yourself. Mark down exciting (to you) stuff that happens on that day: Found cousin Dehlia’s Christmas card with her contact info under the sofa cushion…bonus…also cleared the underside of all sofa cushions!

During points of drought over the seeker’s field, these can be reviewed to help you re-inspire yourself.. RahRah Me!

2. Start getting the kids involved. This is a great time to plan and gather. Spring break car travel-time looms, or being stuck at home with “bored” loved ones. Instead of hiding inside your head, invite them to start their own spiffy project. Call in the cousins for support and reinforcement. If you would like to see a shining example of what a kid’s book can look like click the link and visit Raelyn of Telling Family Tales…all her little book projects are fringed with magnificence. You don’t have to be this elaborate, just drink it in for inspiration ~ http://tellingfamilytales.com/2013/03/04/when-he-was-young/

3. Toward the end of the month, prepare and send out another “mailing” to let everyone know you are still working on this project (call it the “story of us” or something clever and inclusive). Include a little crumb of “reactive bait” like a photo, or a couple of little questions (does anyone recall the name of the road Grandfather’s farm was on? Was it named? Was it always paved?). If you have been lucky enough to elicit a response or two from the last letter binge…build on it. I find that others are kinda generous with sharing scans of photos, and that they love telling me about how much fun it was “digging through the dusty boxes with mum” but, they don’t really convey the meat of that to me~without direct and subtle inquiry 🙂

Human nature…sigh!

So, I then start feeding back to them…hey, that pic of Granny and Harry, where do you think that was taken? Do you know about when? What the heck were they doing there in that place? Wonder who took the picture? That looks like the 60’s to me (when clearly it’s more like the 20’s…trust me on this one…try it!).

Then, it never hurts to throw in something utterly stupid (this is a great technique to get info…everyone loves “correcting” me). Ask a questions that you are sure you know the answer to ~

Say something really, profoundly, ignorant…”Did Harry have any bothers?” This would be a good one if in fact, Harry comes from a brood of 10-12 assorted gender children, or was the younger brother of a famous prize-fighter, or was taken in as an infant or purchased from Gypsies (as my family generally insists about me)

Everyone loves to be right. Everyone likes to “school those fools who have it wrong.” So say your dumbest stuff, and listen to every little utterance that comes at you as fall-out. That’s YOUR pot o’ gold! Have fun with March where ever the weather and the “stupid questions” land you, and I hope you get kissed on St Paddy’s day too!

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Lots of folks are out there selling the latest and greatest (usually written by them) books on How to Become a Great Writer.

Personally, I have nothing against promoting your own work. In today’s cyber-spaced-out-twitterpedia market, it’s just what is demanded of authors. But before all this instant gratification culture hit us, there were writers who took it slow. Who did the deed deeply and with precision. These are the ones to follow and sit quietly studying if you truly want a shot at stardom.

Of course, that’s just Mom’s opinion 🙂. And we all know how Moms are in general when it comes to having a thought about something–right. Just blatantly, unarguably, right.

If you are interested in peering in over the shoulder of many great writers, take a look at Francine Prose’s book “Reading Like a Writer.” My review of this “rocked my world” book follows. It was originally written for my gig as a reviewer at CatholicFiction.Net for Tuscany Press. If you want to write, buy this book, dog-ear it, go in deep, savor it and don’t spare the highlighter markings! I promise it will up your game, no matter whether you’re a wannabe, a beginner or a seasoned pro!

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In her bookReading like a Writer, Francine Prose sets out to explain the art of reading and enjoying words written by some of the world’s most gifted authors. In artfully dissecting great works piece by piece, Prose succeeds without lecturing. In Reading like a Writer she uses sample passages by literary giants to teach her readers, while simultaneously demonstrating her love for the written word. The only part of this book that nearly caused me to knock it down to four stars from the deserved five, was the passage where she tells of her passion and enjoyment of diagramming sentences! Mercifully, this errant exaltation only lasts for a scant few sentences and then Prose is back to the beautifully told stories of and about the stories we love to read.

Anyone who loves books, read books, writes them or hoards them in tall stacks should own Reading like a Writer. The 300+ pages are crafted like a tour of a well curated library. Each point made by Prose (whose ironic last name is quite telling) unfolds before the reader as a gift. At no time does this book feel like a required text for a tiresome Lit class. Francine Prose herself is a gifted writer. She sets out to teach appreciation of the perfection laid onto pages for readers by the greatest of the great writers and succeeds fully.

Prose begins Chapter 1 by explaining the method and joys of “Close Reading.” This is something I have never thought of or experienced. Like most people, I am a casual reader. I am generally not “deep.” I tend to read at face value, simply closing the book when the last page ends. “Close Reading” totally changed my approach to pleasure reading. I pulled a couple of my favorite books down from the bookcase to “play along” as I read on.

Chapter 2 is about “Words.” She teaches the reader to intimately consider each word chosen for a sentence. We learn here that one by one, the writer of substance discerns each word and asks if it is meaningful, meaty, or simply acting as a place holder. I was on fire with the idea of the power of a single word given to or taken from a sentence. Back at my bookcase, into my personal manuscripts, the same questions and word scrutiny was happening alongside Francine’s coaching. All the way through her book, Prose introduces and then thoroughly demonstrates her method for understanding and appreciating one narrow topic after another.

We are led through such chapters as “Sentences,” “Paragraphs,” “Narration,” “Character,” “Dialogue,” “Details,” and “Gesture.” Each part inspired another look back at my own beloved books and indeed, my own writing to make comparisons. Just as it seemed no other topic is possible to explore, Francine Prose walks right up to the lofty and learned principles of the author Chekhov in her chapter “Reading for Courage.” This chapter is one where the true God-given talent of the author is revealed between words.

While the head spins with happiness from the new enjoyment that one is able to extract from old favorites, Prose hits the reader with her personal recommendations. This is a lengthy list of titles (117 but who is counting?) which she names as “Books to Be Read Immediately.” A tall order? Absolutely, considering that no fewer than five are tomes by Tolstoy. However, being armed with these new insights imparted by Reading like a Writer I feel inspired and capable. Those 117 books will all go on my bucket list alongside my well-worn copy of Francine Prose’s wonderful field guide to absorbing great writing!

What Samuel Johnson said so perfectly — “A writer only begins a book; a reader finishes it” — Francine Prose eloquently proves in Reading like a Writer.

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Where better to read Riley’s poem Little Orphant Annie than atop his tomb from a bronze book inscribed with the famous last lines

Taking kids to a cemetery for the first time can be a tricky business. I always wanted mine to visit their ancestors and loved ones, and I didn’t want them to be terrified and jumpy while they were there. I’ve always tried to put the emphasis on the grave markers as a way that we honor people, rather than a way to mark where their bodies are now.

Recently, I decided that my 1st grade granddaughter(I like to refer to her as Doll-baby) was old enough to be intro’d to leaf viewing at the graveyard with Grandmama. So, last week over her Fall Break from school, I resurrected (sorry, there are just too many terrible puns to resist on this topic) an old tradition from when her mommy was small. We loaded up the car, the dog, and ourselves and headed to the old city neighborhood surrounding Crown Hill Cemetery.

We passed through the ornate brick and iron entrance gates and drove by the Victorian era mourning station. For what seems like miles, the larger than life (haha) winged angels, obelisks, fancy tombs and little cave-like crypts are lined up in rolling winding rows. They look like randomly placed sculptures set in an outdoor gallery. The bleached white marble seemed to glow against a backdrop of red and gold maples.

Crown Hill is a big place. Covering over 550 acres, and currently just short of a quarter of a million interned, the cemetery has 25 miles of paved roads within it’s gates. With no road signs and so much to look at, it is an easy place to get lost in. To find the way to our destination (the famous “Strawberry Hill”) we follow a white line discreetly painted along one of the of narrow lanes winding through the graveyard.

The hill is the absolute best place I know of in Indianapolis for fall color viewing. It is unofficially the highest point in the city. From here, the view of the downtown skyline and all the rest of the panoramic scenery is breathtaking. And it ls from here that Mom begins her sneaky, slipped-in-before-they-notice-what’s-happening local history lesson. Doll-baby has expected to go trekking with crazy Grandma to see the pretty fall colors at the big city cemetery.

We are really there to soak up a little poetry and culture without getting spooked.

Here, scattered across the landscaped sections lie a US President, several “Veeps” all sorts of Senators and Ambassadors, a bunch of Union Generals, athletes, pillars of industry and society, gangsters (yep, over there that’s where ol’ John Dillenger is),the man who played Uncle Remus in Disney’s movie Song of the South, and even a Gypsy King and some race car drivers. It’s really quite the assortment at rest, eternally planted here together.

James Whitcomb Riley, Booth Tarkington, Kurt Vonnegut and that “Fault in our Stars” kid Augustus Waters are all buried here in our local cemetery (well, not Augustus really, he’s just a fictional character). I, like many of the “old timers” of Central Indiana, often refer to Crown Hill Cemetery merely as “out at 38th Street” and usually call the most swanky and coveted section of Crown Hill “Strawberry Hill.”

True, we are headed up the marked lane to see the city from it’s highest point, but we are also going to visit and leave a little gift for Mr Riley. It’s a tradition whenever you scale Strawberry Hill. And though I am not creeped out by graves and burial grounds, I sure would never want to get that way by snubbing tradition!

Famous for his poem about goblins who would come and get misbehaving kids,Little Orphant Annie was a poem often read to children around Halloween– or bedtime when ill behavior warranted.

Crowning Strawberry Hill, James Whitcomb Riley’s tomb has the best spot available out of every inch available in all of the massive cemetery.

“Annie” was a real girlwho worked as a housekeeper and sort of nanny to the Riley children. She is pictured here in this photo from 1885. When her father went off to fight in the Civil War, her mother had already been dead for many years. When he was killed in action, little Annie was orphaned (or “orphant” in Hoosier talk). Her name in real life was actually Mary Alice, and the poem written about her was to be titled “Little Orphant Allie” but it was misread during typesetting and became famous instead as “Annie.”

Amazingly enough, Mary Alice wasn’t aware she was the inspiration for “Annie” for several years, or that James (or Jim as she knew him) had spent many years searching for her. He ran numerous ads in Indiana newspapers trying to find her and reconnect. In about 1915, just before his death, “Annie’s” daughter happened upon one of the advertisements and contacted him. You can read about it in Mary Allice’s obituary.

If you are unfamiliar, you can click on the poem’s title above if you’d like experience the sort of dark humor Mom was raised with. Those who are not at least partially fluent in “Hoosier” as a language will probably have a pretty tough time understanding the written words. So, for your convenience, enjoyment, and usage if you ever find yourself in need of a way to snap those pesky grandchildren in line…here’s an actual recording of Mr Riley, the old coot himself, reciting “Little Orphant Annie” around 1912.

The recording is also a bit tough to understand between the accent and the poet’s age when the recording was made, and likely his general condition. It seems that JW was an enthusiastic imbiber. So maybe he sounds a little slurry because he was a little sloshed?

I do recall times in my own childhood when by chance or by well planned attack, our Grandparents would somehow end up with all 9 of us grandchildren for the weekend. Occasionally things got a bit rowdy. I have flashbacks to scenes of our Grandpa (ol George the Methodist aka “The Dog Nab”) loudly reciting the lines of the Goblin poem in our direction. Then he would shew all of us, still white faced and breathless up the terrifying narrow stairway to our beds. In present times, this would probably be considered emotional abuse enough. However, the real abuse started when the snarling, howling gasps and whistling grunts started to waft up the steep stairwell as he slept denture-less and his snores crawled up from the master bedroom below us.

Sweet Jesus! We were all sure goblins and werewolves roamed those hallways at night!

We ended up having a wonderful and educational day. We gathered loose change up from the car and participated in the Riley Tomb tradition. Doll-baby thought that was really cool. Her class was always collecting soda tabs for “Riley.”

The tradition? Well it seems that although Mr Riley was widely known, well published and dearly loved by children and adults alike, he died completely broke. When the children of the city heard that their beloved spooky poem writing favorite was buried without a marker, they began coin drives until one could be purchased. Funds poured in from around the world and in 1922 the cornerstone was laid on the Riley Hospital for Children, in no small part funded by the coin drives of his young fans. Today, the Riley hospital is a beacon of hope for the sickest children from around the nation. And that’s why the tradition of leaving coins on his tomb lives on today, a hundred years after his passing. The grounds crew gather the money each day and deposit it into the Riley Children’s Fund.

Maybe those ol Goblins did more good than they could ever know!

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Write like it’s your job? Who’s job? Mine? Yours? Maybe it’s just L. Frank Baum’s job to entertain us all. In his short career, Baum wrote just under 60 novels, 83 short stories and a couple hundred poems. He did all this within a 25 year time span. He created new worlds, wrote about politics, women’s rights, and all kinds of socio-political topics using friendly little characters and totally manual typewriters. He foretold some pretty awesome inventions and changes in daily living while selling the heck out of all these kiddy books!

So, what keeps you from sitting before your spell-checking, no white-out needed, multiple tab opening keyboard to write down a little story about Uncle Roscoe and his prize winning Blue Tick Hound Dogs?

If you follow along on the Mom bloghere, you’ll know that right now I’m deeply immersed in NaNoWriMo. If that means nothing to you, the quick description is this:

Every November for many years (about 15 I think…wiser NaNo’s please feel free to correct me) writers can commit, totally on a voluntary basis, to writing 50,000 words, over the course of 30 days, yeilding 1 rough manuscript with room for 0 excuses. It is the Hell-dive we call National Novel Writing Month–NaNoWriMo for short. So I’m doing that!

There are of course incentives for finishing early (like having a clear path through the house when all the relatives land expecting Turkey and all the fixins on November 28th!). To “Win” the NaNo, one simply completes the aforementioned task…get 50K semi-coherant words written down within 30 days. It’s a hoot. Or a form of self flagellation 🙂 What I have learned from writing for many years with or without participating in the fall NaNo frolic is this…

In order to be successful, all you have to do is Write Like it’s Your Job!

I know, I know~ There’s that whole “life” and responsibilities thing. Well guess what? Try explaining that one to your boss and see how many buyers you get for the excuse you’re selling! If you want to write, need to write, feel it and believe it in your bones that you were born to write…you just have to make time to write. Or else no one, not even you, will ever know the difference.

How many blank sheets of paper go wanting and wasted by those who were meant to write the next great American novel? Who but you could give Alex Haley a run for his Roots? Nobody but you has walked in your moccasins Powhatan and Pocahontas, so get on that Memoir and let your story be known! Honor your own need to tell the stories, whether fact or fiction or fantastic vision or expose by taking control and managing yourself. Be the boss, look over your shoulder, reward a good day’s work, and don’t be too quick to forgive a lackluster performance or a string of uneventful and unnecessary “personal days.”

Is it a dry day? No way to start, nothing dazzling rearing it’s head, pushing your fingers to glide swiftly with flair across the cosmic keyboard?

Tough @#$%.

I like the old saying used in retail and restaurant work:

If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean!

If your day-job is that of a switchboard operator(do they still have those?) and you are scheduled and paid to work 8-5 Monday through Friday with one hour each day for lunch, it doesn’t really matter whether or not the phone rings. If and when it does, while you are clocked in, you better be chipper, proficient and professional when you respond to the chiming bell. Your dedication to writing needs to be revered in the same manner. On a day when nothing worth noting passes through your head to your empty pages, you need to side step the urge to “lean” and busy yourself with the opportunity to “clean.”

That’s the real life, real world, school of hard knocks truth of writing for any sort of long-term project. It has to have your full attention. You have to treat yourself like an employee, set expectations, and work full speed to get the job done.

Any day where there is just not a word to say (and yes, those are real) is a day made for cleaning. Not literal–unless you make a pigsty of your work space–but cleaning up your prose. Do some edits, spend some time with Grammarly, catch up on your correspondence with distant cousins, seek out a nice map of the home town of your pilgrim forefathers, surf the web for museum collections of clothing common to a time period you’re working on. Re-read your stories and improve your sentence structure or descriptive word usage. Sort or scan photographs, do a little more research, go out to the closest family cemetery and walk around. Take some photos of former family homes, do some research on Aunt Zelda’s flatware that’s been handed down to you.

Like finding the base of your family heritage all the way back to the Garden of Eden, writing the story is a work with endless opportunities to be fuller, richer and more rewarding.

Even if the only shift you can manage for your job as a writer is a scant 20 minutes per day, don’t squander the time with the equivalent of break-room chatter, laziness or habitual leaning like the perpetual “ne’r do well” (look that one up some day when there’s nothing to do). Use and cherish every opportune moment to get your Genealogy stories written and make them come dancing off the page.

Time spent writing stories down for those who come next is never wasted time or work unrewarded.

By the way, did you happen to notice someone missing on the photo above? I cannot seem to find my Lion finger puppet, he’s usually right here on the desk with the others. Maybe during my next break I’ll ask the dog…

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So many little counties and Bergs have historical societies. And the “tails” they can tattle are often rather TITILLATING and odd…OK, these two are frankly disgusting and weird!

Yeah, well, I’m not really sure what this was about… Actually several friends have posted seasonal memes on their Facebook pages about protecting cats this time of year–especially the black ones. So imagine my surprise when this little diddy popped up on my Facebook feed!

Rather attention getting to say the least...

I’ve done the lightest bit of poking around trying to figure this one out. It was an advertisement and promotion that ran some time in the 1940s in a newspaper near my hometown.

Somebody must have had a rodent problem, a really big rodent problem!

Or, were the kitties doomed for wartime experimental lab work?

Were they returned after Saturday?

Was Cruella DeVil’s feline-favoring sister married to one of the Hortons?

Too many questions whipping around in the autumnal air!

The Boone County Historical Society recently reprinted the following story from 1894(which I believe was an archivists’ selection and retelling that the newspaper ran in the early 1960s). The man with the byline–Ralph Stark– had a regular feature something akin to our “Throw back Thursdays.” Ralph’s reprint appears below in its entirety. I was amazed when this came up on my Facebook feed about 120 years after the occurrence.

All stuff like this might be lost forever if it weren’t for the digging that Ralph did to find it for us in the 70’s and the lovely volunteers at the local Historical Society who make the effort to re-find and share these unbelievable stories today.

Some day I would love to run down all the “rest of the story” on both the cat herding and the rather bizarre tale that follows. You don’t have to read the newspaper story I’ve copied and pasted here,

…but if you enjoy a good accounting of what it was like to be in the middle of a 19th century lynch mob, it would be well worth your time.

I would have loved to known what these reporters were thinking as they watched this story unfold and then typed it up this for the highly divided readers around town. And how the heck did all these people find out about this so quickly? This happened long before the county had telephone service in homes, let alone CNN or Twitter.

Right now there isn’t the time for me to go chasing it though.

Who knows, Maybe someone else has already written it down…

Enjoy~

photo of the Lebanon Indiana courthouse accompanies the story retold and published in the Lebanon Reporter

Common Sense of a Few Lebanon Citizens Saves Suspect FromLynching

By Ralph W. Stark

There were more than the usual number of early risers up and stirring about in Lebanon’s chill morning air on Monday, February 5th, 1894,but the customary hustle and bustle, and the sounds and noises ordinarily associated with the dawning of a new day were strangely missing. Men on the streets downtown seemed to no longer walk briskly and upright, but rather to slink furtively along, to slither with snake like grace as they moved about. Gathering in little knots of threes and fours and fives, they conversed in low tones, almost in whispers, accompanied with much nodding of heads charging, by their actions, the very atmosphere with the sinister and ominous portent that the next few hours were to be marked with such excitement, violence, madness and shameful, conduct as never before nor since seen, or experienced, in the theretofore peaceful and sedate little community.

Indeed, had it not been for the good common sense and the unflagging courage of some eighteen or twenty of the town’s sturdiest pillarswho stood like hard granite columns throughout the long day against the lawlessness and disorder engendered by a bloodthirsty, vengeful gang of howling hoodlums, the evening sun might have set on the blackest period in all of Lebanon’s history.

As it turned out, by nightfall law and order had been restored. The one small group of level-headed, forthright thinking citizens, which included law enforcement officers, judges, lawyers, clergymen, and businessmen, had successfully thwarted the evil intentions of a large mob of would be lynchers to wrest a prisoner charged with a foul crime from the custody of the authorities and to hang him from the limb of a tree in the courthouse yard. By late afternoon, the accused had been found guilty on his own plea and sentenced, all in due process and the fullest majesty of the law and was safely on his way to the state prison.

Late in the night of the Saturday preceding Lebanon’s day of tumult and rioting, Frank Hall, a negro, forced his way into the home of the widowed Mrs. Mary Akers, living four miles east of town, and, after driving the children from the room, raped the white woman, so it was alleged. On leaving, the rapist trudged through the snow to the house of his stepfather, Levi Hall with whom he lived, about a mile distant from the Akers place. Early Sunday morning, Boone County Sheriff John M. Troutman and other officers, having been sent for, followed the footprints from the Akers home to that of Levi Hall’s, placed Frank Hall under arrest, and soon had him locked up in the county hostile.

News of the crime spread like wildfire, reaching far out into the county, and by noon the swelling crowd and the muttered threats against the prisoner so alarmed Sheriff Troutman that he took the man by train to Indianapolis, lodging him in the Marion County jail for safekeeping overnight, pending his being returned here on Monday morning for an appearance before Judge Stephen Neal in the Boone Circuit Court at 9 o’clock.

Hall was brought back at an early morning hour, but because of the incensed and unruly rabble milling around the jail, growing larger and more voluble and obstreperous with each passing minute, the hearing was postponed until 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

By midday, the excited throng numbered nearly a thousand persons,most of whom were merely spectators gathered about the hard-core mob composed of some fifty men and a few women. At the noon hour, ministers of several of the Lebanon churches, including the Rev. H. L. Kindig, Methodist, the Rev. J. A. Pollock, Presbyterian, the Rev. J. A. Knowlton, Baptist, and the Rev. Father H. A. Hellhake, Catholic, made impassioned speeches urging the aroused citizens to return to their homes. Earlier, Prosecutor Patrick H. Dutch had implored the people to desist from their lawless purpose.

These pleas, however, fell upon deaf ears. Promptly at 2 o’clock, in the custody of Sheriff Troutman, Marshal Charles N. Oden, Policeman James Caldwell, Deputy Sheriff Frank Daily, and others, Hall was brought out of the jail to be taken to the courtroom.

The little band and its prisoner was immediately surrounded by the mob, in the midst of which was a Mrs. Taylor, better known as Mrs. Van Benthuysen, who was aptly nicknamed, “The Vengence,” by newspaper reporters, because she carried a length of rope and kept up a continuous screaming of “Let’s hang him! Let’s hang him!”

Taking the prisoner from the jail to the north entrance of the courthouse turned into a battle royal. Sheriff Troutman’s drawn revolver was snatched from his hand and several attempts were made to knife the terrified Hall. Despite the fact that the small coterie of officers had been reinforced by George W. Norwood, C. F. S. Neal, W. H. Moler, and a dozen other men, the journey was a physical struggle every inch of the way.Three times the ugly noose was slipped over the head of the prisoner, once over both his and Marshal Oden’s heads, but always some ready hand deftly flipped it off. On three other occasions the rope was drawn taut about the man’s neck, once on tightly that his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded, but each time a guard cut the hemp before serious injury resulted.

At last the interior of the courthouse was gained and with every entrance guarded by men with ready guns, the culprit was hustled into the courtroom. There, before Judge Neal, he dropped his protestations of innocence, and pleading guilty to the charge, was sentenced to a term of twenty one years in the Indiana state prison.

While the prisoner was held under guard in Judge Neal’s chambers, the Judge, Prosecutor Dutch, Judge Joshua J. Adams, and Mike Keefe addressed the rowdy mobsters, pleading with them to disperse. Some of the more weary followed the advice given, but enough remained to cause Sheriff Troutman continuing concern.

He quickly deputized a hundred of the calmer citizens, and late in the afternoon these men formed a compact hollow square at the west door of the courthouse and with Hall in the center, marched out into Lebanon Street and south to the Big Four Railroad depot.

Without further incidence, Sheriff Troutman and his prisoner, accompanied by a detail of twelve deputies, boarded the evening train bound for Indianapolis where Hall was to be kept in jail until he could be taken to Michigan City. The deputies were thought necessary because it was rumored that a delegation was waiting at Whitestown for the purpose of taking Hall off the train and hanging him there.

Unfounded though the rumor proved to be, it is needless to say that the engineer yanked the throttle wide open to roar through the Worth Township metropolis at top speed while the lawmen nervously fingered the triggers of their shotguns and revolvers. The trip terminated without further trouble and within a few days Hall was occupying a cell in the Northern Prison, as it was then called.

And so ended what was surely Lebanon’s most exciting, and at the sametime, most shameful day. Although law and order had triumphed and peace again reigned in the town and the adjacent countryside, the stirring several hours were not quickly forgotten, furnishing the basis for the recital of countless true accounts and innumerable tall stories for many following years. While the odious affair was in progress, Indianapolis papers and press associations rushed representatives to the scene, and Lebanon was bathed throughout state and the mid-west in the limelight of unwelcome embarrassing notoriety that papers later carried editorials congratulating the community its narrow escape from the adjudication of mob law and commending those citizens bravery and clear thinking kept the town’s good name and reputation from being and blackened by a lynch mob.

There may be one or two venerable Lebanonites reading this story who will recall as youngsters on that eventful day sixty eight years ago there were among the motley small boys and older youths coping ringside seats in branches of the maple trees on the courthouse lawn, witness to the stupid and hideous behavior of their elders. In his Lebanon Patriot February 8th, 1894, Strange Cragun editorially commented: “mob law is no law, and where it is indulged there is no safety for the property or lives of the people of Boone County, by the good sense of the best citizens, has decided that it shall not get a footing on our soil.”